make – and how to use it behind a firewall

make is a powerful tool which allows you to build a port by issuing a single
command. If makecant find the source files it needs, it goes out onto the
Internet to get them. However, if you are behind a firewall, there are a couple of
things you should set in order for make to do it’s job.

If you get the
following message when you use fetch, then I suspect you are behind a firewall:

If you are encountering an error message which is similar to the above, then try this
simple test:

fetch -p <file>

If this succeeds, then the following lines added to /etc/make.conf should
solve the problem:

FTP_PASSIVE_MODE=YES
FETCH_BEFORE_ARGS=-p

fetch allows you to retrieve a file by supplying a URL (Uniform Resource
Locator). It is very useful and powerful tool. It effectively automates an
anonymous FTP session. It works for both ftp and http.